The most effective way of making everybody serve the single system of ends toward which the social plan is directed is to make everybody believe in those ends. To make a totalitarian system function efficiently, it is not enough that everybody should be forced to work for the same ends. It is essential that hte people should come to regard them as their own ends. Although the beliefs must be chosen for the people and imposed upon them, they must become their beliefs, a generally accepted creed which makes the individuals as far as possible act spontaneously in the way the planner wants. If the feeling of oppression in totalitarian countries is in general much less acute than most people in liberal countries imagine, this is because the totalitarian governments succeed to a high degree in making people think as they want them to.

This is, of course, brought about by the various forms of propaganda. Its technique is now so familiar that we need say little about it.

The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before. The people are made to transfer their allegiance from the old gods to the new under the pretense that the new gods really are what their sound instinct had always told them but what before they had only dimly seen. And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning. Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of the meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regime are expressed.

The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word “liberty.” It is a word used as freely in totalitarian states as elsewhere. Indeed, it could almost be said – and it should serve as a warning to us to be on our guard against all the tempters who promise us New Liberties for Old – that wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people. Even among us we have “planners for freedom” who promise us a “collective freedom for the group,” the nature of which may be gathered from the fact that its advocate finds it necessary to assure us that “naturally the advent of all planned freedom does not mean that all [sic] earlier forms of freedom must be abolished.” Dr. Karl Mannheim, from whose work these sentences are taken, at least warns us that “a conception of freedom modelled on the preceding age is an obstacle to any real understanding of the problem.” But his use of the word “freedom” is as misleading as it is in the mouth of totalitarian politicians. Like their freedom, the “collective freedom” he offers us is not the freedom of the members of society but the unlimited freedom of the planner to do with society what he pleases. It is the confusion of freedom with power carried to the extreme.

A simple example is universal single-payer health care. It’s to provide freedom from the evil insurance companies. It provides “freedoms” as quoted here in remarks by a speaker at a press conference by Nancy Pelosi:

The new law has not only given me the freedom to stay covered, but has also freed me and my family from the fear that an insurer could drop me at any moment or limit me to go without treatment.

The “freedom to stay covered” is at the expense of someone else – at the expense of the individuals who make up an insurance company, or at the expense of the individual taxpayer. Their freedom is traded for this patient’s priviledge. Being “free” from “fear” that he could be dropped means that the insurer, or taxpayer, is now enslaved to his treatment. He is now a guaranteed recipient of the labor of individuals, whether those individuals who also purchase insurance from a company, and now face increased premiums because of this government-protected claimant, or he is dependant on the taxpayer to cover his bill. Ultimately, he is “free” only insomuch as he takes from someone else.

He is not free to choose a less expensive company, or free to go to a non-profit charity that would look out for his special case and would desire to help him – he is “free” by shackling others to his needs. That is not freedom – that is parasitism enforced by the state. Person A now must pay for Person B’s medical needs because Person B is “free” from the costs.

Hayek continues on pg 175:

In this particular case the perversion of the meaning of the word has, of course, been well prepared by a long line of German philosophers and, not least, by many of the theoreticians of socialism. But “freedom” or “liberty” are by no means the only words whose meaning has been changed into their opposites to make them serve as instruments of totalitarian propaganda. We have already seen how the same happens to “justice” and “law,” “right” and “equality.” The list could be extended until it includes almost all moral and political terms in general use.

This is a major, major point. This is why “liberals” today are intolerant, closed-minded people. Virtually every aspect of who they are is the exact opposite of what they are. They fight for “social justice” which is just redistribution, they fight for “human rights” that include health care, and even food – which cannot be rights – as they come at the expense of others. They call themselves progressives, but they don’t progress towards greater liberty for the individual, they progress towards greater power for what the state “must do on your behalf“. This is regressive, towards the totalitarianism of dictatorships and kings, not towards the greater well-being of the individual. Liberal in Hayek’s day meant closer to what libertarian or even conservative means today. Not what libertarian or conservative is demonized as by the political left/progressives, but what they actually are.

It is for this reason that conservative author/radio host Mark Levin refers almost exclusively to the left as statists, as their main function is to expand government to their own ends. Also note that there are right-wing, or socially traditionalist/conservative statists, who are often simply a different brand of moralist from the leftist statist. The leftist statist wants you to stop drinking and smoking for your health and because it’s good for you, the rightist statist wants you to stop drinking and smoking because it’s “fiend intemperance”. The leftist statist will force you to drive a hybrid car because of his Gaia-worship, the rightist statist will force businesses to close on Sunday to keep the Sabbath holy.

A major difference is that a rightward traditionalist in America, a mindset which often goes hand in hand with the moralist, can still be reminded that a reason the country was founded, and indeed the 1st Amendment was written, was to escape state-mandated religion. The leftist, by contrast, believes that history started last week, and will reject the past as outmoded and obsolete in their own quest for power and The Greater Good. As Thomas Sowell writes in his book “The Vision of the Anointed”:

“For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.”

Returning to Hayek, pg 175:

If one has not one’s self experienced this process, it is difficult to appreciate the magnitude of this change of the meaning of words, the confusion which it causes, and the barriers to any rational discussion which it creates. It has to be seen to be understood how, if one of two brothers embraces the new faith, after a short while he appears to speak a different language which makes any real communication between them impossible. And the confusion becomes worse because this change of meaning of the words describing political ideals is not a single event but a continuous process, a technique employed conciously or unconciously to direct the people. Gradually, as this process continues, the whole language becomes despoiled, and words become empty shells deprived of any definite meaning, as capable of denoting one thing as its opposite and used solely for the emotional associations which still adhere to them.

To sidetrack a while from the explicitly political, using a pop culture reference as an example, you can see how freedom has changed. Most of the readers of this blog will know who this is. On the off chance we have some very young readers or very old readers, this is Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots – the good guy Transformers.

(Movie Review): And when Optimus Prime, the chief good Transformer, declares that “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings,” we know we’re in a Bush-era universe.

(OP): if the reviewers had done maybe 10 minutes of online research (say, on the Teletraan-1 wikia), they’d know that Prime has been spouting his line since before Bush’s dad was president. Moreover, what is so bad about freedom being a basic right? Isn’t that in the hugging Declaration of Independence? What is so quintessentially “Bush” about it?

(SD): Pretty much a case of people shooting words off before doing proper research, and an annoyingly over-liberal mindset. I mean, I don’t care for Bush, to put it lightly, but I also don’t wedge my political views into whatever I type/write.

(S): I can see how that line might be used by the likes of Bush to justify a war like Iraq (the lie that the war is all about human freedom rather than oil).

(PTP): Technically we were in a Regan-era universe when it was written, which isn’t all that much better…

(OP): Maybe, but I still don’t see how the motto that encapsulates democracy would be reduced to represent someone’s biased view of the Bush administration.

(D): I’d be hard pressed to vote for a president who didn’t believe in the basic right of freedom. I mean there’s liberal, and then there’s blindedly liberal. Gah.

(TNG): I don’t really get why anyone would think that “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” is a particularly conservative viewpoint. Definitions of exactly what freedom means may differ within the political spectrum but I don’t think you’d find many democrats arguing against freedom as a basic human right.

Liberals=progressives=statists, specifically here, anti-Bush statists, who are competing for the same space as state controllers. Thus Freedom=Bush talking point. Freedom=bad, to liberals, who are really progressives, who are really leftist-statists. Also thus the word liberal, which is supposed to mean accepting of others, is now explicitly anti-freedom (even just in this discussion). Liberal has gone so far as to also include Reagan and all non-leftist statists, thus even the original quote by Optimus Prime waaay back in about 1984 is rejected as being related to Reagan, Republicans, and therefore to a Liberal is a Bad Thing.

Liberal is anti-freedom, freedom is oppression, progressive is statist.

Even the notions of left and right are reversed. In France in 1789, at the French Assembly, the rebels who resisted the state sat on the left, while the supporters of the state sat on the right. Except the French state was a monarchical state that didn’t represent the people, and had subjects, not citizens. A rebel to the French state would be resisting tyranny.

The United States, by contrast, were formed by the people, for the people, and of the people. The government was explicity designed to respond to the citizenry, and to be accountable to the citizenry. The Constitution itself was a charter document designed to constrain any government to the initial agreement that the citizens had made when they settled on a government. Consider first that the Declaration of Independence was a rejection of tyranny that called for the people to institute a government from the people, then consider that a government, instituted by the citizenry who choose their government, is how the democratic republic set up by the Constitution was designed.

Thomas Paine explains in concrete terms what a Constitution is:

But it will be first necessary to define what is meant by a Constitution. It is not sufficient that we adopt the word; we must fix also a standard signification to it.

A constitution is not a thing in name only, but in fact. It has not an ideal, but a real existence; and wherever it cannot be produced in a visible form, there is none. A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution. The constitution of a country is not the act of its government, but of the people constituting its government. It is the body of elements, to which you can refer, and quote article by article; and which contains the principles on which the government shall be established, the manner in which it shall be organised, the powers it shall have, the mode of elections, the duration of Parliaments, or by what other name such bodies may be called; the powers which the executive part of the government shall have; and in fine, everything that relates to the complete organisation of a civil government, and the principles on which it shall act, and by which it shall be bound. A constitution, therefore, is to a government what the laws made afterwards by that government are to a court of judicature. The court of judicature does not make the laws, neither can it alter them; it only acts in conformity to the laws made: and the government is in like manner governed by the constitution.

The Constitution is static. It is what the government is based on, and the laws that the government, in order to remain legitimate and existing upon the consent of the people, must adhere to. Being on the left in the US and rejecting the established Constitutional order is rejecting a truly classically radical liberal document that enshines the rights and liberties of all citizens. Being on the left is pushing for statism. Being a conservative who wishes to conserve Constitutional principles is being a classical liberal, a radical libertarian – one who is opposed to the idea of a controlling state.

Religious liberalism and conservatism became injected into political liberalism and conservatism, as well as social liberalism and conservatism – but there is a wide gulf between what one preaches in one’s private or even public life, and what one inflicts through force of government. Conservative has come to mean statist-religious, liberal to mean statist-humanist/statist-Gaia-or-Science-worshipper.

In this, the leftist-progressive-statist has changed the entire discussion by changing the meaning of words. For another example: the religious-statist who would use force of government rather than persuasion has changed the word conservative to also mean moralist authoritarian – a term the leftist-statist is very much willing to embrace, as it drives people into their camp – to accept the “freedom from religion” that then turns into trying to destroy the religions of others – which is explicitly illiberal. Another example: fascism was a brand of statist totalitarianism wherein the economic means of production were controlled by the state, but not always wholly owned. Communists attacked fascists, with whom they were competing for the same leftist anti-capitalist statist-totalitarian space on the political spectrum, and accused fascists of being capitalist. Fascism, descended from national socialism as opposed to communist international socialism, suddenly became its opposite, when the two are nary a hair’s breadth apart. Yet the modern leftist-statist who favors socialism as an economic means to his Greater Good, will accuse someone who opposes them of being a national socialist.

Paine set up concretely what a Constitution is. Those who support it, must support it for what it is. It is a compact between we the citizen and those citizens we choose to serve us. Words do mean something. Our Constitution was established as a document that can change through the amendment process, but it is not to be manipulated until freedom means slavery. But that is precisely what the leftist-statist has embraced (as well as the rightist-statist to a lesser degree). George Orwell summed much of this up with his coining of the term “Newspeak” in his book “1984” several years after The Road to Serfdom had been published. As Orwell says in “1984”:

By 2050—earlier, probably—all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron—they’ll exist only in Newspeak versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually contradictory of what they used to be. Even the literature of the Party will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like “freedom is slavery” when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

Sadly, Orwell himself was a democratic socialist, basically a theory of benevolent socialism, but that can be the subject for another tl;dr post.

Lest I forget, the other Hayek:

Eventually I’ll just end up with pictures of chicks from Vienna to represent the Austrian School.

JBH is on a little hiatus. It’s almost Memorial Day (which I surprisingly have off – go fig). For those of you out looking for something to read while sitting on the boat waiting for the fish to bite, or something to read while you’re watching the kids frolic and play, or something to read while you’re grumbling that you have to go to work on Tuesday but you’re privately thankful that you’re still employed, here are a couple of ideas:

ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn RandIt’s the story of what happens when a government of moochers and looters crack down on men and women of intellect, from whose minds spring the wealth of man’s existence. When the fountainhead of man’s creative and productive ability is diminished, society becomes diminished. But those with drive don’t simply accept that the state of man is one of decrepitude.

(From what I understand, it’s also the second-longest novel in the English language.)

In the linked article that provides more modern context, it’s also telling the future day by day. I’ve heard the Cliff’s Notes are often recommended as a way to make sure you’re able to digest all the huge ideas thrown about.

Ayn Rand’s stark moral and philosophical judgements on good and evil lend themselves to harsh criticism by relativists. Most criticism of Ayn Rand is groundless, the criticisms of her philosophy being made by people trying to justify their own vices and immoral “looter” ideals, and angry at being portrayed accurately in the novel as villains. It’s frightening to see her most intentional parody and ridicule of collectivist/leftist/statists (moochers & looters) being used by popular figures and accepted by the public as legitimate debate positions to hold today.

Ayn Rand lived in and escaped from the USSR. Anyone who has lived in a socialist/communist/collectivist country usually has little good to say about them. Canadians, contrary to popular belief, aren’t big fans of their health care system. Those who stood in bread lines in the former Soviet Union, or who lived in flats with their entire family, quite often have good things to say about the American system. Former Soviet subjects are rarely fans of disarmament, either. They are intimately familiar with what the “good intentions” of what non-productive people seeking to redistribute wealth of the productives results in.

This is often overlooked by people who haven’t been lucky enough to speak in depth with former subjects of the USSR. There is a distinct political gap between a witless US-raised professor who’s been insulated in academia all his life and never had to live in the real world and those USSR-raised professors who’ve had colleagues vanish in the night for saying the wrong thing. Those who’ve escaped the perfect collectivist/leftist/socialist/communist system have the wisdom of experience. The other keeps insisting “socialism/collectivism/communism will work this time, they just did it wrong” – this is the logic that leads them to believe it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

When Rand’s work sheds light on the turd in their hand, the collectivist/leftist/statist/looter will invariably try to defend the mess they’re holding and justify their own idiocy, or at best try misdirection. Illuminating and thus abolishing the failed ideas of fools is something my other suggestion for light reading also does rather well. Also, this one is a light read in volume, but very heavy in content.

Levin’s most recent book (which was #1 on both the Amazon and NYT Bestseller lists for several weeks, and is #2 on Amazon as of this post) is surreptitiously sweeping the nation. Listeners to his radio program are already familiar with many of his opinions and ideas, but it takes a fair amount of listening to hear his reasoned opinions on such an array of topics.

He starts in the first few pages by breaking down what conservatism is. In America, conservatism is adherence to the principles of the constitution – which was founded on classical liberalism. Classic liberalism, American conservatism, are founded on the preservation individual liberty being the function of the State.

The state (especially the federal state) is not there to regulate how people live, nor how they should worship – or not worship. The state is not there to take from one group and give to another. The state is not there to redistribute wealth. The state’s purpose is to protect individual liberty and protect one’s ability to earn wealth and to keep it. The state is not to dictate how one group must live, or how the people are to be “cared for” by the state. The state, in America, is to be a model of the social contract – government exists by the consent of the government – government of, by, and for the people. Government does not exist to rule the people.

When the Founding Fathers wrote our Declaration of Independence, it was from the king’s state that sought to redistribute from the colonies to the king, where the king ruled the people of the colonies.

Winston Churchill famously said ““If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.” Classic liberalism and conservatism are the same, allowing both a heart to care for the individual and a brain to know it’s historically proven to be the best for the individual. Both reject a king dictating to free people.

Today, “liberalism” is the doctrine of taking from one group to give to another group. A narrative is written, and one group is portrayed as the villain, while the other is the victim – always to justify the consitutency/perpetuety of office of the “liberal”. In the recent banking scandals, the bankers have been portrayed as “predatory lenders” – giving loans to people who couldn’t pay them back. The government forced these loans through the CRA. Now the government, under the guise of “liberal” empathy takes over the banks and buys the banks. This is but one example.

Levin identifies this and strips it away. This is not liberalism, it is a course of action that is solely supporting the state and expanding state interests – it is statism. He identifies that the first issue in understanding conservatism is understanding what it is – supporting individual liberty and individual rights and limiting the state.

Levin’s Liberty & Tyranny comes in at around 200 pages, but is well written and concise. Rand’s Atlas Shrugged comes in at around 1100 pages or more, and is exceedingly well written and well paced to allow ideas to sink in. It is considered a literary masterpiece of importance second only to the Bible.